We live in the post-truth age. Europe is lurching dangerously to the right, while democracy appears to be under attack in Russia, Turkey and the US. It's a fractious, volatile environment, and it seems natural to look to artists, poets and intellectuals for guidance. Bob - you just won a Nobel Prize - speak to us! Tell us what to think!
As if.
Though, to be honest, maybe a triple album of American standards is exactly the thing to bring people together. And, it’s been a long time since Dylan did anything so obvious as direct social commentary. Hell, it’s been half a decade since he released an album made up of his own songs: both 2015’s ‘Fallen Angels’ and 2016’s ‘Shadows in the Night’ reinvented him as a Great American Songbook crooner with convincing, if not astounding, results.
The same goes for ‘Triplicate’, the Minnesotan’s 38th studio album. Standout moments include his country-infused version of Frank Sinatra’s I Could Have Told You and Stardust, a song written by Tin Pan Alley writers Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish in the late ‘20s.
The latter tune is an elegant elegy of soft nuance and a love song about a love song: “Though I dream in vain/In my heart, it will remain/My stardust melody/The memory of love's refrain.”
Elsewhere, Dylan delivers fine versions of The Best is Yet to Come (another Sinatra standard) and These Foolish Things - a Billie Holliday tune that was actually written by two Englishmen: Eric Maschwitz and Jack Strachey. The latter is performed with strange, laconic grace - both resigned and wistful - but infused with that deep-rooted defiance that has defined much of Dylan’s catalogue.
‘Triplicate’ works best as an educational anthology; something for students of popular music young and old. Is Dylan phoning it in? Possibly. But we are talking about a musical auteur who has defied his fans as often as pandered to them. When they demanded acoustic truth, he gave them electric noise. When they wanted Cold War commentary, he gave them Christian rock. And now, in his sixth decade in the public eye, he gives them easy listening - arguably the thing he was railing against when he first arrived all those years ago.
But that’s Dylan. He’s a singer who seems to represent a particularly individualistic form of social togetherness. A voice that seems to stumble on the truth every time it is spoken.
Bob Dylan Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Fri April 28 2017 - LONDON Palladium
Sat April 29 2017 - LONDON Palladium
Sun April 30 2017 - LONDON Palladium
Wed May 03 2017 - CARDIFF Motorpoint Arena
Thu May 04 2017 - BOURNEMOUTH BIC
Fri May 05 2017 - NOTTINGHAM Motorpoint Arena Nottingham
Sun May 07 2017 - GLASGOW Clyde Auditorium
Mon May 08 2017 - LIVERPOOL Echo Arena
Tue May 09 2017 - LONDON SSE Arena Wembley
Thu May 11 2017 - DUBLIN 3Arena
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